When Sir Trevor McDonald gamely stepped aside and allowed Dermot O’Leary to take control of the National TV Awards six years ago, it seemed like it would be pipe and slippers time.

And who would have blamed him for taking it easy? Being paid to make a glorified holiday video each year like The Secret Caribbean and The Secret Mediterranean sounds like the best golden handshake ever.

But a serious news man was never going to be happy sitting on a beach for long.

I’m guessing that’s why at the ripe old age of 75 he jumped at the chance to go and meet some blokes who used to shoot people in the back of the head for a living.

The result, last night’s documentary The Mafia With Trevor McDonald, was really good stuff.

Mafia: Trevor with Michael 'Mikey Scars' DiLeonardo

The tales of cold-blooded murder and disregard for human life were every bit as gripping and disturbing as his Inside Death Row series was last summer – yet in a bizarre way, it was kind of thrilling too.

Because the real life Mafia guys that Trevor met were just like the ones we’ve seen on screen in GoodFellas, The Godfather and The Sopranos.

They talked the same, they dressed the same, they had the same way with nicknames.

It would have been easy to get carried away and spend the hour doing Joe Pesci impressions or pondering things like “If Trevor was a hitman would his nickname be Trevor Whackdonald?”

The key to avoiding doing that was Trevor himself. While Mickey Scars and his pals might be fans of all things deep pan Sir Trev prefers deadpan.

Neither impressed nor disgusted by his subjects, he brought the gravitas often lacking in documentaries these days – particularly the ones on ITV.

And you have to salute Trevor and ITV for having the cojones to take on projects like this. Of course, some will argue there was every chance the Mafia guys he met were simply trading on former glories and he was never in that much danger.

The fact is Trevor still took that chance. And we should be glad he did. Mark my words, if we don’t appreciate proper presenters like Trevor and proper documentaries like this the future will be very bleak.

In five years’ time all we’ll be getting is Joey Essex Meets The Mafia. And no one wants to see that.